Into groups of 4 or if you are an individual then do the Magnetism Task

Review results of the task

Discussion of grouping and thoughts on the activity

Involves students working together in small groups to accomplish shared goals.

Class sessions are structured for cooperative learning methods for only 7-20% of the time

Teachers use language that is more friendly, encouraging and supportive of their student learning

Research indicates that cooperative learning typically results in

1. higher achievement and greater productivity

more caring, supportive and committed relationships

greater psychological health, social competence and self-esteem

Types

Formal cooperative learning- consists of students working together for one class period or several weeks

Informal cooperative learning- insists on having students work together to achieve a learned goal that may last from a few minutes to one class period

In contrast to cooperative situations, competitive situations are ones in which students work against one another to achieve a goal that only one or few can attain.

In competitive situations there is a negative interdependence among goal achievement. Students perceive that they can obtain their goals only if the other students in class fail to obtain their goals

Also, students either work hard to do better than their classmates, or they take it easy because they believe they don’t have a chance of winning.

1. Positive interdependence

2. Face to face interaction

3. Individual and Group Accountability

4. Interpersonal and small group skills

5. Group processing

This involves all group members working together to complete the groups goal

When positive interdependence is established, students will understand that each members contributions are indispensable, with each member having a unique contribution to make to help the group achieve the goal

Students learns that they “sink or swim together” and they must complete their assigned work if the group is to attain its goal

Involves students working in small groups where they can see each other so they can engage in face to face discussions about the group’s tasks

Encourages students to be more willing to reach out to others, listen to what they have to say and actively work to include other ideas in the group discussions

Involves students understanding that they will be held accountable for the individual contributions to the group that free loading will not be tolerated and that everyone must contribute

When students contribute and receive acknowledgements for their efforts, their sense of self-efficiency is enhanced and they are motivated to continue to working in order for the group to have success

Students need to be taught how to communicate effectively with each other so they know how to express their ideas, acknowledge the contributions of others, deal with disagreements and manage conflicts

They need to know how to share resources fairly, take turns, and engage in discussion making

This is a type of formative assessment that involves students reflecting on how they are managing the process of learning, including what they still need to do to accomplish their goal.

Involves students asking questions like….

how are we doing?

is there anything else we should be doing?

how could we do it differently?

Group processing encourages students to reflect on the role of group members to determine if there are any decisions they need to make to enhance members contribution to the group.

Many states, including Connecticut, Maryland, California, and Kansas have adopted collaborative work during their state assessments.

Several studies show that students learn from their collaborative work. However, many argue that scores from collaborative work do not show what each student knows.

Thesis: “Some combinations of students may confer an advantage 0ver others, in terms of learning from group work or in relation to group productivity or both”.

Studies show that:

1. low- ability students learn best in groups with high- ability students.

2. high-ability students perform well in any group composition.

3. medium-ability students learn the most in relativity homogeneous groups

Heterogeneous groups- groups that have diverse levels of ability

Homogeneous groups- groups that all have the same level students. For example: all high- ability and all low-ability

Group ability composition had a major impact on all performance and process variables

The effect of group composition was especially strong for students in the two lowest levels (low ability and low-medium ability)

For these students working in groups with at least one above average student was a big advantage over working in groups with only below average students or working alone

Working with above average students helped below average students to achieve greater performance on the group test and higher scores on the individual test. Although studies demonstrate that heterogeneous grouping may produce greater individual scores than other grouping….there is a concern

Classroom to classroom and school to school differences in distributions of achievement suggest that manipulating group composition to produce equally fair groups across classrooms and schools may be impossible.

This limits the opportunities available for low-achieving students to work with a higher achiever

Study results vary in their findings when deciphering whether high-ability students learned more in heterogeneous or homogeneous groups

This study was conducted by 3 education professors who wanted to take a deeper look into group composition and its effects on the performance of groups, the quality of group discussion, and the achievement of individual students.

662 7th and 8th grade students (21 classes) from 5 schools in the Los Angeles county

6 teachers taught the 21 classes

The schools represent a wide range of demographic characteristics

Some are predominately minority, some are predominately white. The levels’ of students abilities in all schools varied.

The assessment was designed to measure students’ understanding of voltage, resistance, current and the relationships among them in the context of simple electric circuits.

Prior to instruction the students were given 3 pretests:

1. vocabulary

2. verbal reasoning

3. non-verbal reasoning

After the tests the teachers conducted a 3 week unit on electricity and electric circuits

At the end of the unit students were given a hands-on test and a written test that measured their understanding of voltage, resistance, current and their interrelationships. Both were done individually.

One month later they were given the same two tests with no review or further instruction.

For the hands-on test: 80% of students worked in groups of 3 control groups / 20% worked individually with no interaction

The written was done individually by everyone

Each group was given one set of manipulatives, but each individual had their own worksheet to fill out

A composite score based on the pretests and the first hands-on and written tests that were done individually was computed to measure students’ abilities prior to the final test.

Students were classified as:

low

low-medium

medium-high

high

The groups were both heterogeneous and homogeneous

Each group was formed so that they would be heterogeneous on gender and ethnic background

Groups were videotaped while they worked

Researchers later looked at the videos and listened to the answers of the students and combined their answers if each student contributed a different part of the right answer

Students were also graded on their participation in the group discussion

The study results were the same as the studies done in the past.

Low-ability students performed better in heterogeneous groups than homogeneous.

Medium-ability students tended to work better in homogeneous groups.

High-ability students did not suffer from working in heterogeneous groups, however they gained no advantage.

Ability grouping

Friendship grouping

Peer tutoring

Base grouping

Gender grouping

Students judged to be similar in their academic ability are grouped into groups or classes

Class grouping involves creating subgroups within the class, with each subgroup being fairly similar in ability

Mixed ability groups promote achievement gains for low and medium ability students

High ability students are not disadvantaged/hurt by working with lower ability peers. However, they are not in a primal setting.

All teachers (6th grade teachers for instance) may give a math pre-test before the start of a new unit

The pre-test will determine the prior knowledge and ability level of students as well as areas that need to be focused on

Based on the results of the pre-test, each student will be placed into 1/4 math classes

Each class will meet the needs of a different ability level

Children are assigned a color and bid to form a group with other students of the same color

Each color represents a different ability level – low, medium low, medium high, high

This way teachers can modify instructions to fit the needs of the students in each group

There is no evidence that students who know and like one another benefit most from working together as they tend to accept more responsibility for their learning and are more motivated to achieve their goals than students who aren't friends

In a study of high school students preferences for teacher-selected or student selected grouping in science, it was found students preference for choosing their own group members declined

This is because many realized that friends may not always be ideal group members because a conflict can arise from being a good friend and being a good team member

Students reported that friends often tended to talk and socialize rather than work

Many students were reluctant to challenge a friend who was not contributing to the group

Peer Tutoring- this approach involves students teaching students

2 types

1. cross age tutoring-older students work with younger students

2. peer tutoring- students within the same class work together

Some benefits

peer tutors are effective in teaching students who don’t respond well to adults

can develop bond of friendship between both individuals

allows teachers to teach a large group of students while giving slower learners the individual attention they need

tutors benefit by learning to teach

A group of four students who support each other for either a term or a year

Heterogeneous with regard to gender and ethnicity as well as how successful students are with the course content

Each base group meets several times a week for 5-15 minutes to check on everyone’s content understanding

Gives each student a sense that they are cared about from at least 3 other students (this is vital for some students because it gives them confidence)

Students often prefer working in gender balanced groups

Adolescents do not like to work in mixed-gender groups

Students are more interactive and obtain higher learning outcomes in gender-balanced groups

When groups were gender balanced boys and girls were equally interactive in the help they provided

Whole class

Teachers used language that was more authoritarian and impersonal where teachers spent more time directing, questioning and disciplining students

In whole group instruction the entire class is taught. This allows teacher to ask questions directed towards the entire class, allows teacher to lecture, do demonstrations and explain a topic

Small group instruction

Times when objectives can be better met with small groups

In small group instruction students tend to be more actively engaged and teachers can monitor student progress

Ideal group size is 3-4 students

Should not be larger than 6 students

This ensures that all students are included

Gives students greater opportunities than whole class activities to interact with one another

Allows tasks to be tailored to special interests or needs

A wide variety of tasks can be addressed at once

Teaches students skills such as:

coordination, communication, conflict resolution, decision making, problem solving, negotiation, leadership, and working with diverse groups

Pros for groups:

Teamwork is often needed in the work place. Employees want people who can work in teams

Studies show that students tend to have poor engagement levels in small-group learning activities unless the teacher is actively involved in the session. Obviously the teacher can’t address every groups needs at once, so often groups fail to address their tasks due to lack of guidance.

Not all students will do equal work

Not all students learn by working in groups

Burden, Paul R. Classroom Management Creating a Successful Learning Community.

New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2003 Cangelosi, James S. Classroom Management Strategies. New York: John Wiley & Sons,

Inc., 2004 Gillies, Robyn M. Cooperative Learning Integrating theory and practice. Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, 2007.

Jones, Louise and Jones, Vern. Comprehensive Classroom Management Creating Communities of Support and Solving Problems. Boston: Pearson Education, Inc., 2004.

Webb, Noreen M., Kariane M. Nemer, Alexander W. Chizhik, and Brenda Sugrue. "Equality Issues in Collaborative Group Assessment: Group Composition and Performance." American Educational Research Journal 35 (1998): 607-51.